Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga: First impressions

NEW DELHI: If it's anything Lenovo has learnt over the years about its ThinkPad line up is that it should stick with the basics – delivering a power-packed, heavy duty laptop regardless the market trend. We find the ThinkPad range the most intriguing as it still has powerful laptops that maintain a simplistic look. The only major visual difference you will see in ThinkPad laptops from 3 years ago and now is that the thickness has been reduced and the innards have grown more powerful than ever. Rest of the design language stays intact. Lenovo thinks that these factors will appeal to Indians so it unveiled the ThinkPad X1 Yoga in the country.

If you are unaware, the convertible laptop was introduced earlier this year during CES 2018 conference alongside its other ThinkPad X1 siblings. Being the most powerful convertible in the ThinkPad series, the X1 Yoga is priced at an eye-watering Rs 1,26,000 at the lowest. What you get in that price tag is something we are yet to talk about in detail in our review. For now, based on the two-day use of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga, here are our initial impressions.

Before sharing the experience, let's skim through some key specifications of the ThinkPad X1 Yoga. The Windows 10-based ThinkPad X1 Yoga is powerful on the inside as it packs an octa-core 8th-gen Intel Core i5 vPro processor clubbed with 16GB LPDDR3 RAM, Intel UHD 620 and up to 1TB SSD storage. The laptop is also available in Core i8 vPro version. The unit we received sports a 14-inch QHD resolution IPS touchscreen display, which can rotate for up to 360-degrees and can be used as a tablet but not for long. This is because of its rather heavy 1.18Kg weight. Also included are dual speakers and a HD webcam.

The keyboard is easy to get used to and has well-spaced keys, preventing you from moving your hands too much while typing. We are yet to see how it performs in the long run, so stay with us for the complete review.

On working on the device we found the brand-new ThinkPad X1 Yoga rather easy to use. Although it has been sliced slimmer than before, it still manages to support a bunch of much-required ports for business users. This is understandable given the audience it targets. It supports a couple of USB 3.0 ports alongside Thunderbolt 3 ports, a 4-in-1 microSD card and a HDMI port.

The most interesting part of the laptop is how it makes all the keys on the keyboard flat as soon as the screen crosses 180-degrees rotation. This brings the entire keyboard on the same level as the palm resting area or the touchpad, all of which makes holding the device in the tablet more way more easy and comfortable. Same happens while closing the laptop screen.

In addition to this nifty trick, you get few more small-yet useful features, which these days are in every other mid-range or premium laptops - Windows Hello based fingerprint sensor and backlit keyboard. There are also stereo speakers on the underside that are pretty good in terms of loudness. So we guess watching Netflix shows shouldn’t be a disappointing experience at all.

Since the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga is primarily a business laptop, the company has made no compromises as it has kept a microSD card slot in addition to a SIM card slot. However, these are not placed on the sides along with other ports. These are hidden right where the screen hinge is. The slots are only visible when you rotate the device into a tablet mode. At the other end you have the exhaust grille.

Not many laptops impress us at first go as most of them are the same, trying to go where the crowd is moving. But the ThinkPad X1 Yoga is a rather interesting piece of machinery, at least what we could make out by spending a couple of days with it. The laptop has everything a heavy user needs in terms of specifications and features. Let’s see how they all fare after we’ve used it for over a week or more. Stay with Techno News13 for the review.